Honey Don’t! is the second film in a projected ‘Lesbian B-Movie’ trilogy from husband and wife team Ethan Coen and Leslie Cooke. The first, Drive Away Dolls, was mildly received as nostalgic but not as polished as we have come to expect from a film made by a Coen brother. With his newest lesbian crime caper, the feeling is still the same.

Honey Donahue (Margaret Qualley) is a private investigator looking into the death of a woman who had contacted her the day before. With some help from detective Marty Metakawich (Charlie Day) and some private romantic help from police officer MG Falcone (Aubrey Plaza), her investigation leads her to the sleazy Reverend Drew Devlin (Chris Evans).

All of the below-the-line departments are working perfectly in sync. The costuming in this film is phenomenal; it succeeds in being nostalgic without ever veering into costume-y for the modern time period it’s set in. Qualley has never looked better — every hairstyle they put her in is gorgeous, and it gives her the gravitas to hold up this film on her own. The production design again harks back to a time period in the past, but still weaves in the modern items of today. I’m not sure if this is what Bakersfield, CA, actually looks like, but it makes for a terrific town to set a Neo-noir in. The cinematography from Ari Wegner is also exquisite. The combination of all of these departments creates a film that is a pleasure to look at and admire.

The main issue with Honey Don’t! is the script. The story itself is not nearly as deep or interesting as a good Neo-noir should be. It rides this line between wanting to be a film from the 70s, whilst also having the lesbian characters that feel modern. Because it is caught between the two, the film just lacks that finesse with the narrative it is telling. The pace can be, at times, quite glacial, which is not something a film that is sub-90 minutes should feel like. 

The lines that the actors were having to say just did not ever feel like something a human being would say. Sometimes this works for a Coen Brothers movie, but it did not work here. The script did not give the service needed to make a brilliant actress like Margaret Qualley shine. Her quips only highlighted the poor script and the strange approach she had to bring to the character. Chris Evans was captivating in his role as this gross pseudo-cult-leader, but the resolution for his character at the end falls completely flat. 

Coen and Cooke aim for the B-movie style of filmmaking, but for that to happen, it needs to be an awful lot more polished, and the script needs to be far funnier than this one is. My only advice for their next collaboration: Honey don’t stop rewriting that script.